Woodstock PD Contract Yet?

Has the City completed its labor negotiations with the officers of the Woodstock Police Department yet?

It's my understanding that the officers have been working without a contract for over a year. Longer? Is there an officer of the department who would like to comment here on what it feels like to work in a department that cannot (will not) complete union negotiations for over a year?

What is the cost to have negotiators/mediators involved? Is the City actually paying $250.00 per hour for a mediator to try to move things off dead-center? How many hours have been paid for, so far? And will the rate increase when a different category of negotiations is reached?

What is the hourly rate for an arbitrator?

In the early 1980s in Denver I met John Marks, founder of Search for Common Ground, a Washington, D.C.-based international mediation firm. http://www.sfcg.org/

From its website I read today, "We began in 1982 at the height of the Cold War, and we focused on building bridges between East and West. Back then, we had two employees, a handful of supporters, and a minuscule budget. And we had the audacity to think we could change the world - from a win-lose, you-or-me environment, to a win-win, you-and-me place.

"Today, that audacity still shapes our work. "

I recall one of John's comments about establishing a relationship between parties who were never going to agree. He said that the first thing you do is to find something on which they can agree. It might be that they cannot agree. So there actually is something on which they can agree, and you build from there.

We need some of that around here!